I’ve been walking with Syd in the VillAr wilderness* for a few years now, and know my way around. But I don’t have the paths mapped in my head the way he does, partly because he’s been walking there so much longer, and (muchly) because he’s the “Cruise Director” so that, like a passenger in a car (my wife marvels at my ability to navigate Montevideo!), I don’t have to pay particular attention: just along for the ride/walk.

Syd and Gundy have been in Buenos Aires for a couple weeks. Their house/pet sitters apparently saw little benefit in my accompanying them on dog walks (which shocks me; I find my company scintillating — but alas, perhaps therein lies the problem), and adopted no apparent (or at least shared) schedule. So today I took Mocha at 1:00 PM, (an unheard-of hour) so as not to run into them, and we wandered here and there for well over an hour. Several times I walked 50+ meters “the wrong way” down a trail, to see if I was where I thought I was: mapping. Sometimes I was right; sometimes wrong.

Philosophical outtake: when I was 14, I didn’t really perceive my evident cluelessness; things just sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. 50 years later, I find my cluelessness amusing – or at least, interesting. Sometimes I know where I am; sometimes not. It’s all good.

Along the way noticed details I might not have otherwise, like this:

The top hole is obviously a birds’ nest. What kind? Owl? Active? Not? I approached, but it was above eye level. Do owls burrow into tree stumps? What other bird might? In late October (equivalent of late April northern hemisphere), would this be an active nest?

Were I a National Geographic photographer, I might camp out here six hours – or six days, or six weeks – for answers. As it was, when Mocha crunched nearby returning from a thorough sniff-sniff of the area, we moved on. I will try to remember when we pass by again.

 

* about 150 hectares/370 acres of mostly no-man’s land in Vila Argentina Norte